Home Business NewsTech News Why the heck did Facebook pay $1.3m to hackers in 2014?

Why the heck did Facebook pay $1.3m to hackers in 2014?

by LLB Editor
26th Feb 15 10:07 am

No Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t lost his mind.

Facebook paid a whopping $1.3m (£840,000) to hackers last year for spotting and reporting security flaws.

What did they find? Over 17,000 bugs and security issues.

Some were as serious as hackers being able to view users’ private messages and posting them on their timelines.

In 2011, Facebook began a programme that encourages tech nerds to report any problems they find on the social network.

The programme has been successful with the number of bugs being reported rising 16% year-on-year. Sky News reports that Indian hackers found most bugs, followed by Americans, Egyptians and Filipinos.

Hackers have made a fortune through the programmes with one Lithuanian researcher raking in $30,000 (£19,300).

While the average bounty per hacker was $4,049 (£2,607), the minimum amount paid was $500 (£321).

Facebook’s security engineer Collin Greene said: “Every year we are surprised by what we learn from the security community, and 2014 was no exception.”

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